The Confession of Brother Haluin Page 13

  Another father might well have felled him for such insolence, but Cenred had no such option. Emma was plucking anxiously at his sleeve, troubled for both her menfolk. De Perronet, alert and grim, loomed at his shoulder, eyeing the enraged boy confronting them, and already apprised of an inevitable threat to his own plans. What else could have brought this youngster haring through the night? And by all the signs he had come by the shortest road, dangerous in the dark, or he could not have arrived so soon. Nothing that had happened this night was accident or chance. The marriage of Helisende Vivers had brought about all this coil of murder and search and pursuit, and what more was to come of it there was as yet no knowing.

  “I have done nothing,” said Cenred, “of which I need to be ashamed, and nothing for which I need account to you. Well you know what your own part must be, you have agreed to it, do not complain now. I am the master in my own house, I have both rights and duties towards my family. I will discharge them as I see fit. And for the best!”

  “Without the courtesy of a word to me!” flared Roscelin, burning up like a stirred fire. “No, I must hear it only from Edred, after the damage has already begun, after a death that can surely be laid at your own door. Was that for the best? Or dare you tell me Edgytha is dead for some other cause, by some stranger’s hand? That’s mischief enough, even if it’s no worse than that. But whose plans sent her out into the night? Dare you tell me she was on some other errand? Edred says she was on her way to Elford when someone cut her off. I am here to prevent the rest.”

  “Your son refers, as I suppose,” said de Perronet, loudly and coldly, “to the marriage arranged between the lady Helisende and me. In that matter, I think, I too have a say.”

  Roscelin’s wide blue stare swung from his father’s face to the guest’s. It was the first time he had looked at him, and the encounter held him silent for a long moment. They were not strangers to each other, Cadfael recalled. The two families were acquainted, perhaps even distant kin, and two years ago de Perronet had made a formal offer for He lisende’s hand. There was no personal animosity in Roscelin’s glare, rather a baffled and frustrated rage against circumstance than against this favored suitor, to whom he could not and must not be a rival.

  “You are the bridegroom?” he said bluntly.

  “I am, and will maintain my claim. And what have you to urge against it?”

  Animosity or not, they had begun to bristle like fighting cocks, but Cenred laid a restraining hand on de Perronet’s arm, and frowned his son back with a forbidding gesture.

  “Wait, wait! This has gone too far now to be left in the dark. Do you tell me, boy, that you heard of this marriage, as you heard of Edgytha’s death, only from Edred?”

  “How else?” demanded Roscelin. “He came puffing in with his news and roused the household, Audemar and all. Whether he meant me to hear when he blurted out word of this marriage I doubt, but I did hear it, and here am I to find out for myself what you never meant me to question. And we shall see if all is being done for the best!”

  “Then you had not seen Edgytha? She never reached you?”

  “How could she if she was lying dead a mile or more from Elford?” demanded Roscelin impatiently.

  “It was after the snow began that she died. She had been some hours gone, long enough to have reached Elford and been on her way back. Somewhere she had been, from somewhere she was certainly returning. Where else could it have been?”

  “So you thought she had indeed reached Elford,” said Roscelin slowly. “I never heard but that she was dead. I thought it was on her way. On her way to me! Is that what you had in mind? To warn me of what was being done here in my absence?”

  Cenred’s silence and Emma’s unhappy face were answer enough.

  “No,” he said slowly, “I never saw hide or hair of her. Nor did anyone in Audemar’s household as far as I know. If she ever was there at all, I don’t know to whom she came. Certainly not to me.”

  “Yet it could have been so,” said Cenred.

  “It was not so. She did not come. Nevertheless,” said Roscelin relentlessly, “here am I as if she had, having heard it from another mouth. God knows I am grieved for Edgytha, but what is there now to be done for her but bury her with reverence, and after, if we can, find and bury her murderer? But it is not too late to reconsider what was intended here for tomorrow, it is not too late to change it.”

  “I marvel,” said Cenred harshly, “that you do not charge me outright with this death.”

  Roscelin was brought up short against an idea so monstrous, and stood open-mouthed with shock, his unclenched hands dangling childishly. Plainly such a notion had never entered his ingenuous head. He stammered a furious, half-inarticulate disclaimer, and abandoned it halfway to turn again upon de Perronet.

  “But you—you had cause enough to want her stopped, if you knew she was on her way to warn me. You had good cause to want her silenced, so that no voice should be raised against your marriage, as now I raise mine. Was it you who did her to death on the way?”

  “This is foolery,” said de Perronet with disdain. “Everyone here knows that I have been here in plain view all the evening.”

  “So you may have been, but you have men who may be used to do your work for you.”

  “Every man of whom can be vouched for by your father’s household. Also, you have been told already it was not on the outward way this woman was killed, but returning. What purpose would that have served for me? And now may I ask of you, father and son both,” he demanded sharply, “what interest has this boy in his close kinswoman’s marriage, that he dares to challenge either her brother’s rights or her husband’s?”

  Now, thought Cadfael, it is all as good as out, though no one will say it plainly. For de Perronet has wits sharp enough to have grasped already what particular and forbidden passion really drives this unhappy boy. And now it depends on Roscelin whether a decent face is kept on the affair or not. Which is asking a lot of a young man torn as he is, and outraged by what he feels as a betrayal. Now we shall see his mettle.

  Roscelin had blanched into a fixed and steely whiteness, his fine bones of cheek and jaw outlined starkly in the torchlight. Before Cenred could draw breath to assert his dominance, his son had done it for him.

  “My interest is that of a kinsman close as a brother lifelong, and desiring Helisende’s happiness beyond anything else in the world. My father’s right I never have disputed, nor do I doubt he wishes her well as truly as I do. But when I hear of a marriage planned in haste and in my absence, how can I be easy in mind? I will not stand by and see her hustled into a marriage that may not be to her liking. I will not have her forced or persuaded against her will.”

  “This is no such matter,” protested Cenred hotly. “She is not being forced, she has consented willingly.”

  “Then why was I to be kept in ignorance? Until the thing was done? How can I believe what your own proceedings deny?” He swung round upon de Perronet, his blanched face arduously controlled. “Sir, against you I have no malice. I did not even know who was to be her husband. But you must see how hard it is to believe that all has been done fairly, when it has not been done openly.

  “It is in the open now,” said de Perronet shortly. “What hinders but you should hear it from the lady’s own lips? Will that content you?”

  Roscelin’s white face tightened yet more painfully, and for a moment he struggled visibly against his fear of inevitable rejection and loss. But he had no choice but to agree.

  “If she tells me this is her choice, then I am silenced.” He did not say that he would therefore be content.

  Cenred turned to his wife, who all this while had clung loyally to her husband’s side, while her troubled eyes never left her son’s tormented face.

  “Go and call Helisende. She shall speak for herself.”

  *

  In the heavy and uneasy silence after Emma had departed it was not clear to Cadfael whether any or all of this disturbed household had
found it as strange as he did that Helisende should not long ago have come down, to discover for herself the meaning of all these nocturnal comings and goings. He could not get out of his mind the last glimpse he had had of her, standing solitary among so many, suddenly lost and confounded on a road she had believed she could walk to the end with resolute dignity. In a situation so grimly changed she had lost her bearings. A wonder, though, that she had not, in defense of her own integrity, come down with the rest to discover the best or the worst when the searchers returned. Did she even know yet that Edgytha was dead?

  Cenred had advanced into the half-lit hall, abandoning even the seclusion of the solar, since there was no longer any privacy to be found behind a closed door. A woman of the household had been killed. A lady of the family found her marriage the occasion of conflict and death. There was no possibility here of any separation between master and man, or mistress and maid. They waited with equal disquiet. All but Helisende, who absented herself still.

  Brother Haluin had drawn back into the shadows, and sat mute and still on a bench against the wall, hunched stiffly between the crutches he hugged to his sides. His hollow dark eyes passed intently from face to face, reading and wondering. If he felt weariness, he gave no sign. Cadfael would have liked to send him away to his bed, but there hung on everyone here a compulsion so strong that there could be no departure. Only one had resisted the pull. Only one had escaped.

  “What keeps the women?” fretted Cenred as the moments dragged by. “Does it take so long to pull on a gown?”

  But it was long minutes more before Emma reappeared in the doorway, her round, gentle face full of consternation and dismay, her linked hands plying agitatedly at her girdle. Behind her the maid Madlyn peered warily, round-eyed. But of Helisende there was no sign.

  “She is gone,” said Emma, too shaken and bewildered to make many words of it. “She is not in her bed, not in her chamber, nowhere to be found in all this house. Her cloak is gone. Jehan has been out to the stables. Her saddle horse and harness are gone with her. While you were absent she has saddled up for herself and ridden away secretly, alone.”

  For once they were all alike silenced, brother, bridegroom, frustrated lover, and all. While they schemed and agonized and wrangled over her fate she had taken action and fled them all. Yes, even Roscelin, for he stood stricken and amazed, utterly at a loss like all the rest. Cenred might stiffen and frown at his son, de Perronet swing round upon him, in black suspicion, but plainly Roscelin had had no part in this panic flight. Even before Edgytha’s death, thought Cadfael, her secret errand and failure to return had shattered all Helisende’s arduously assembled certainty. Yes, de Perronet was a decent man and an honorable match, and she had pledged herself to him to remove herself from Roscelin’s path, and deliver herself and him from an unbearable situation. But if that sacrifice was to bring only anger, danger, and conflict, even short of death, then all was changed. Helisende had drawn back from the brink, and cut herself free.

  “She has run!” said Cenred on a gusty breath, not questioning, accepting. “How could she do it, all unseen? And when can she have set out? Where were her maids? Was there never a groom about the stable to question her going, or at least give us warning?” He passed a helpless hand over his face, and looked round darkly at his son, “And where would she run but to you?”

  It was out now, and there was no taking it back.

  “Have you hidden her away somewhere in secret, and ridden here with your false indignation to cover up the sin?”

  “You cannot believe that!” said Roscelin, outraged. “I have not seen her, nor had any word from her, nor sent her any, and you know it. I’m newly ridden from Elford by that same way your men came there, and if she had been on that path we should have met. Do you think I would then have let her go anywhere alone in the night, whether on to Elford or back here? If we had met we should have been together now—wherever that might be.”

  “There is a safer way by the highroad,” said de Perronet. “Longer, but as fast on horseback, and safer going. If she did indeed set out for Elford, she may have ridden that way. She would hardly risk the same path your men had taken.”

  His voice was dry and cold, and his face set in forbidding lines, but he was a practical man, and intended wasting no energy or passion on a green boy’s mistaken affections. They did not threaten his position. The match he desired was arranged and accepted, and need not and would not be abandoned. What mattered now was to recover the girl unharmed.

  “So she may,” agreed Cenred, encouraged. “So most likely she would. If she reaches Elford she’ll be safe enough there. But we’ll send after her by the highroad, and leave nothing to chance.”

  “I’ll ride back by that way,” offered Roscelin eagerly, and was off towards the door of the hall with a bound, if de Perronet had not plucked him back sharply by the sleeve.

  “No, not you! What we might see of either of you again, if once you met, I much mistrust. Let Cenred seek his sister, and I’m content she’ll come back to speak her own mind when all this coil is over. And when she does, boy, you had best abide it, and keep your tongue within your teeth.”

  Roscelin did not like being handled, nor much savor being called “boy” by a man whose height and reach he could match, if not his years and assurance. He wrenched his arm free strongly, and stood off further affront with a blackly lowering brow.

  “So Helisende be found safe and well, and let alone in very truth to speak her own mind, and not yours, sir, nor my father’s, nor any other man’s, overlord or priest or king or whatever he may be, I am content. And first,” he said, turning on his father between defiance and pleading, “find her, let me see her whole and well and used with gentleness. What else matters now?”

  “I am going myself,” said Cenred with reviving authority, and strode back into the solar to reclaim the cloak he had discarded.

  *

  But there was to be no more riding out from Vivers that night. Cenred had scarcely pulled on his boots again, and his grooms were no more than hoisting down saddle and harness in the stables, when there arose the purposeful stir of half a dozen horsemen riding into the courtyard, the ring of challenge and answer at the gate, the jingle of harness and dull tramping of hooves on the frozen earth.

  All those within came surging to open the door and see what company this might be, so late in the night. Edred and his companions had gone on foot, and might be expected to return on foot, and here was a well-mounted troop arriving. Out went the torches into the darkness, out went Cenred, with Roscelin and de Perronet hard on his heels, and several of his menservants following.

  In the yard the flickering torchlight flared and guttered and flared again on the strongly boned countenance and massive body of Audemar de Clary, as he swung himself down from the saddle and tossed his bridle to a scurrying groom. Behind him came Edred the steward and the grooms who had been sent on with him to Elford, mounted now at de Clary’s charge, along with three of Audemar’s own men.

  Cenred came hurrying down the steps to welcome them. “My lord,” he said, for once formal with his friend and overlord, “I never looked to see you tonight, but you come very timely and are more than welcome. God knows we’re like to be causing you trouble enough, for we have murder here, as Edred will have told you. Murder within your writ is hard to believe, but so it is.”

  “So I’ve heard,” said Audemar. “Come within, and let me hear the whole tale from you. There’s nothing to be done now before morning.” As he entered the hall, his eye fell on the truant Roscelin, recorded the boy’s grim and unrepentant countenance, and acknowledged tolerantly: “You here, lad? That at least I expected.” Clearly the deeper reason for Roscelin’s banishment was no secret from Audemar, and he had a certain easy sympathy for the boy, short of indulging his folly. He clouted him hard on the shoulder as he passed, and drew him with him into the solar. Roscelin resisted the urging, gripping his lord’s sleeve urgently.

  “My lord, there�
��s more to be told. Sir,” he appealed to his father passionately, “tell him! If she did make for Elford, where can she be now? My lord, Helisende is gone, she has ridden out alone, my father believes she must have set out for Elford—because of me! But I rode here by the rough track and saw nothing of her. Has she indeed come safely to you? Put me out of this anxiety—did she go by the highroad? Is she safe at Elford now?”

  “She is not!” Brought up short against this new vexation, Audemar looked sharply from son to father and back again, well aware of the tensions that plagued them. “We have just come by the highroad and never a sign of her or any woman have we seen. One road or the other, one of us would have met with her. Come, now!” he said, sweeping Cenred along with him in his free arm. “Let’s within, the few of us, and see what knowledge we can put together, to be used with good sense tomorrow by daylight. Madam, you should take some rest, all’s done that you can do before morning, and I will make myself accountable from this on. No need for you to watch out the night.”

  There was no question now as to who was master here. At his bidding Emma folded her hands thankfully, shared a glance of harried affection between her husband and her son, and departed docilely to such rest as she could hope to get before dawn. Audemar looked round once from within the solar, a sweeping glance amiable enough but unmistakable in its dominance, that dismissed all further attendance. His eye lit upon the two Benedictines, waiting unobtrusively on the edge of the scene, recognised them with a nod of easy reverence for their habit, and smiled.

  “Good night, Brothers!” said Audemar, and drew the solar door firmly closed at his back, shutting himself in with the troubled Vivers household and their aspiring kinsman.